SEO Agency for Startups 

Full-time hires without figuring out your GTM or PMF

Hiring a “growth marketer” with 2 years experience and expecting them to figure out your entire acquisition engine. They're smart and eager, but they need direction you don't have time for. Six months later, you've spent $80K on salary and you're not sure what you got.

SEO agency mismatch

Traditional SEO agencies are built for established companies with established budgets. Their minimum retainers assume you're spending $10K+ per month. They carry margins, are slow and process-focused rather than outcomes-oriented. Their processes assume you have a marketing team to interface with. Their timelines assume you can wait 9 months for results. Their playbooks are designed for companies optimizing an existing engine, not building one from scratch. When they take on startups, they lose you money and deliver watered-down services, because you’re never top of mind for them (and never will be). Even worse: you go with a cheap SEO agency, and they scam you while you wait for the results.

Freelance fragmentation

You hire a content writer because you need blog posts. Then a technical SEO consultant because your site has issues. Then a link building specialist because someone said you need backlinks. Now you're managing three people who don't talk to each other, none of whom own the overall strategy. The content isn't optimized for the keywords the SEO identified. The links are pointing to pages that don't convert. You've become a marketing project manager while running your startup. Might work if you know what to do in programmatic SEO, AI SEO, and product-led SEO.

Founder mode marketing learning curve

You're smart. You've taught yourself harder things than SEO. So you figure things out - YouTube, quality content, experiments. You learn enough to be dangerous. But it all takes time plus errors on your learning curve: opportunity cost. You can learn SEO faster by partnering with us instead on our fractional model.

Senior expertise without the senior salary

A full-time head of growth with real startup experience costs $180,000+ in 2026, plus equity, plus benefits, plus the time to find and vet them. A fractional SEO team gives you that same caliber of expertise at a fraction of the cost.

Creativity + bias to action

Some fractional CMOs position themselves as “strategic advisors”—they'll tell you what to do, but you need someone to actually execute it. We’re not fractional CMOs or “marketing managers”. Fractional SEO marketing for us means we do the deep research, figure out the strategy, and roll up our sleeves on implementation - focusing on one or all of the following: programmatic SEO, AI SEO, product-led SEO, and technical SEO. We don’t create and send you keyword reports, audit reports and what not. We move fast.

Founder-first thinking

We understand tight GTM budgets, runway pressure, fundraising pains, being at “ground zero” and figuring stuff out with the associated chaos. We understand that speed is survival, and that you can't do everything and someone who can tell you what actually matters right now can be of major help. We prioritize ruthlessly because we've lived this startup reality. We're not going to hand you a 30-point SEO checklist :). We're going to identify the things that will move the needle over 3-6 months for your company and focus on it, without resorting to shortcuts.

Flexibility

Flexibility is key in moving between research, planning out your content roadmap, figuring out your site architecture, to execution support: creating unique and quality programmatic content, building links, PR, optimizing pages, building interactive tools/apps and experiences. We’re capable of it all.

A note on "fractional CMO" vs. SEO Savages

Many people call themselves ‘fractional CMO’. But CMO implies breadth - branding, demand gen, content, performance marketing, events, social media, the whole stack. We're not that. We're deep specialists in SEO and organic growth: programmatic SEO, AI SEO, Product-led SEO. If you need someone to run your marketing function across all channels, we're not the right fit.

We're not a full-service agency! We focus on what moves the needle for startups: organic acquisition through SEO, and the growth systems that turn traffic into users/customers. Here's what that looks like in practice: 

Programmatic SEO for startups with the right product and/or data assets

If your product generates unique data or serves a market with template-able search demand, programmatic SEO can scale your traffic without scaling your headcount. We've helped startups build hundreds of high-quality pages that rank and convert—not thin doorway pages, but genuinely useful content powered by proprietary data. Not every startup is right for pSEO, but when the fit is there, it's the highest-leverage SEO investment you can make. Learn more about our programmatic SEO approach.

AI SEO for emerging brand visibility

In 2026, your prospects aren't just Googling—they're asking ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Showing up in AI-generated answers requires a different approach: brand signal building, strategic placements in the sources LLMs rely on, and content that positions you as the authoritative voice in your category. We help startups build AI visibility alongside traditional SEO. Learn more about our AI SEO approach.

Product-led SEO growth integration

For startups where the product itself can drive acquisition, we help build SEO into the product experience. Free tools that rank and convert. User-generated content systems that compound over time. Data products that attract links and citations. This requires working closely with product and engineering—which is why we embed with your team rather than operating as an external vendor. Learn more about our product-led SEO approach.

SEO foundations don't require a team to maintain

Most SEO advice assumes you have a content team, a technical team, and a link building team. You don't, and that’s the environment we like to operate in. It’s key to develop your on-site and off-site SEO fundamentals —technical foundations, core content, and link building approaches that work with a freelance outreach specialist.

Positioning and messaging that actually converts

SEO traffic means nothing if your site doesn't convert. 1,000 visitors who bounce is worth less than 10 visitors who convert. We help craft clearer value propositions, trust signals, and conversion paths.

We're selective about who we work with, because fractional only works when the fit is right.

You're a good fit if:

- You're post-product, pre-scale. You have something that works. Customers are using it. Now you need to get it in front of more people.

- You're a technical founder, or marketing isn't your chops. You're brilliant at building product. You want a partner who complements your strengths, not a vendor you have to manage and worry about.

- Organic acquisition makes sense for your business. Your customers search for solutions. They read content, compare options, and do trials.

- You can invest $4K-10K/month in organic growth. This is an investment and it’s not the cheapest option—but long-term we're the option that works and yields ROI.

You're not a fit if:

- You're pre-product. Validate first, scale later.

- You need a full marketing department. If you need brand strategy, events, paid acquisition, content, and SEO all at once, you need more a full-service solution.

- You're looking for "growth hacks." We don't do tricks. We don't promise viral moments. We build systems that compound over time.

- You can't commit to 3+ months. Real growth takes time, 3 months is minimum. If you need results in 30 days, we can't help you—and honestly, no one can. ;)

- You want to hand off marketing and forget about it. Fractional works because we embed with you and/or your team. That requires your involvement—access to product knowledge, customer insights, and strategic context.